Topline
Tyler “Ninja” Blevins topped the list of Twitch’s top five most followed streamers in North America in 2024, boasting more than 19 million followers as the livestreaming platform’s top creators contributed to a busy year for Twitch.
Blevins has more than 19 million followers on Twitch. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Key Facts
Tyler “Ninja” Blevins: The professional gamer and streamer best known for his “Fortnite” streams has 19.2 million followers on Twitch, keeping up his momentum as one of the internet’s most popular streamers.
Kai Cenat: Cenat, who largely migrated from YouTube to Twitch just three years ago, has 15.6 million Twitch followers and has garnered viewers through comedic, marathon-length livestreams that have featured fellow internet personalities like Drew “Druski” Desborders and Adin Ross, as well as celebrities including Kevin Hart, John Cena and Kyrie Irving.
Félix “xQc” Lengyel: Lengyel has 12 million followers and produces a range of gaming and conversational content on Twitch, one of two streaming platforms he broadcasts on (Lengyel signed a two-year, non-exclusive partnership worth at least $70 million with rival Twitch platform, Kick, last year).
Michael “shroud” Grzesiek: Grzesiek, a former pro esports player, is the fourth-most followed streamer on Twitch with 11.1 million followers and has built his audience through high-level competitive play in games like “Fortnite,” “World of Warcraft” and “Call of Duty.”
Imane “Pokimane” Anys: A veteran streamer and internet personality of more than a decade, Pokimane has 9.3 million followers on Twitch garnered through a mix of gaming, reaction and personal vlogs.
Get Forbes Breaking News Text Alerts: We’re launching text message alerts so you’ll always know the biggest stories shaping the day’s headlines. Text “Alerts” to (201) 335-0739 or sign up here.
What Were The Most-Watched Individual Streams On Twitch This Year?
In North America, Cenat dominated Twitch with his streams in 2024, taking the No. 1, 2, 4 and 5 spots with a variety of streams that raked in massive concurrent viewership numbers. Cenat’s sleepover stream with Hart and Druski generated about 712,000 concurrent viewers at its peak, becoming the top stream of 2024. The stream for Day 27 of Cenat’s monthlong “Mafiathon 2” streaming marathon had peak viewership of about 643,000. The streaming marathon ran for weeks in November, featuring 24-hour streams, celebrity appearances and an announcement Cenat would donate 20% of the marathon’s revenue to building a school in Makoko, Nigeria. Video game developer Riot Games took the No. 3 spot, generating a peak of around 638,000 concurrent viewers for the livestream of the League of Legends World Championship’s grand finals. Cenat’s $250,000 giveaway stream with Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson and the day 28 stream of “Mafiathon 2” generated peak viewership of about 472,000 and 469,000, respectively.
Surprising Fact
Cenat’s streaming marathon in November helped the streamer break the record for highest subscriber count on Twitch with 727,694 subscribers, smashing the previous record of 310,000 subscribers achieved by Ironmouse, a streamer and VTuber. Unlike followers on Twitch, subscribers pay monthly subscriptions to support streamers. Subscription tiers for Cenat range cost $5.99, $9.99 and $24.99. Forbes estimates Cenat’s earnings at $8.5 million as of October this year, with the streamer holding the No. 24 spot on Forbes’ Top Creators list.
Big Number
20 billion. That is how many hours of content were watched on Twitch this year, according to the platform, with more than 879 million hours streamed live. Twitch boasted more than 21.4 million active streamers this year and identified “Grand Theft Auto V” as its most-watched category globally this year (1.46 billion hours watched).
Key Background
Twitch is owned by Amazon, which bought the platform for nearly $1 billion in 2014 and does not publish revenue figures for it. However, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy said in January the platform was not yet profitable, making the admission after Twitch laid off more than 500 employees (about one-third of its staff). Twitch reportedly recorded $667 million in ad revenue and $1.3 billion in commerce revenue in 2023, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited internal documents. Twitch also faces competition from rival platform Kick, which has dished out multimillion-dollar deals to lure some of the biggest streamers to its own website. Kick has also become an alternative platform for streamers disgruntled with or facing violations from Twitch, such as Adin Ross. Despite the competition, Twitch has seemingly held the edge when it comes to star power, as creators like Ninja, Cenat and Pokimane have strayed away from Kick, while streamers like xQc and Stroud have far less of a following on Kick than they do on Twitch.
Further Reading
Kick vs. Twitch: Inside Streaming’s Billion-Dollar Death Match (Forbes)
Kai Cenat Reclaims Twitch Subscriber Title With Star-Studded, Month-Long ‘Mafiathon 2’ Stream (Forbes)
Read the full article here